Hydrocarbon wells generally include a wellbore that extends from a surface region and/or that extends within a subterranean formation that includes a reservoir fluid, such as liquid and/or gaseous hydrocarbons. After a wellbore is drilled, it is either fully cased with a wellbore tubular or pipe, or partially cased leaving a portion of the wellbore open as an open hole completion. Cased wellbore completions require selectively opening productive intervals within the wellbore, along the wellbore path. This process is commonly known as a well completion or completing a well.
Cased-hole well completions typically include a perforation operation comprising creating or opening apertures within the tubular wall, typically followed by a formation stimulation operation. The stimulation creates flow paths from the perforation into the reservoir formation to enhance production of the reservoir fluid therefrom. Stimulation of the subterranean formation may be accomplished in a variety of ways and generally includes supplying a stimulant fluid to the subterranean formation through the perforations to create increase wellbore fluid flow paths within as much of the reservoir as feasible. As an example, the stimulation may include supplying an acid to the subterranean formation to acid-treat the subterranean formation and/or to dissolve at least a portion of the subterranean formation. As another example, the stimulation may include fracturing the subterranean formation, such as by supplying a fracturing fluid, which is pumped at a high pressure, to the subterranean formation to create fractures within the formation. The fracturing fluid may include particulate material, such as a proppant, which may at least partially fill or prop open the fractures that are generated during the fracturing, thereby facilitating a formation fluid flow within the created fractures after supply of the fracturing fluid has ceased. Horizontal wellbores are frequently stimulated with multiple separate, individually pumped stimulation treatments, to effectively stimulate or treat the full course of the wellbore within the producing formation.
A variety of systems, devices, and/or methods have been developed over the years to address a variety of challenges, limitations, or issues related to stimulation, with the objective of improving stimulation effectiveness, fracture reach, and reservoir contact within the subterranean formations, providing varying degrees of improvement. Limitations still exist and need for improvement remains, as well completion and simulation costs are a significant portion of the total cost for drilling and producing fluid from a formation.
One area needing improvement relates to the inability to effectively seal some perforations during a multi-stage stimulation operation. Ineffective sealing allows for misplaced portions of stimulation fluid and loss of hydraulic power and stimulation effectiveness. Several causes contribute to the leaking perforations, including perforations that may not be perfectly round or may have burrs, which may make it challenging to seal the perforations with traditional ball sealers, subsequent to stimulating a given region of the subterranean formation. As another example, the perforations often will erode into irregular or non-circular shapes due to flow of proppant slurry through a perforation during a stimulation treatment and/or due to long-term flow of reservoir fluid and formation sand therethrough. Ball sealers may seal effectively on some perforations, seal somewhat on some perforations, or may failing to seal at all on still other severely eroded perforations.
In addition to conventional perforations created by shaped charges that are subject to erosion, one attempt at a solution has been to use selective stimulation ports (SSP's) that include a pre-positioned device installed in the casing wall. The SSP includes an aperture therein that is initially in a closed state by virtue of a destructible disk or gate and that can be converted to an open state with removal of the destructible disk or gate. When time is appropriate during a well completion operation to open a particular SSP, a charge may be positioned within the wellbore adjacent the SSP and actuated to cause a controlled explosion that destructs the destructible disk, thereby opening the aperture. Port erosions problems can still exist in SSP's. Additionally, an SSP completion may result in a stimulated series of well completion zones that are inflexibly limited to only stimulating and producing those zones that are immediately adjacent to an SSP layout that was predesigned before the wellbore casing was run into the wellbore. After stimulation treatment and production logging analysis, it may be desired to either retreat a particular reservoir zone or create additional productive apertures within the casing in a particular zone
These challenges may occur early in the life of the hydrocarbon well, such as during and/or after initial completion thereof, and/or later in the life of the hydrocarbon well, such as after a period of production of the reservoir fluid with the hydrocarbon well and/or during and/or after restimulation of the hydrocarbon well. Thus, need exists for improved sealing of wellbore perforations during multizone stimulation completions, including devices and to methods of operating the same.